Heroes Unlimited

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A Story Arc or season which features an expansion of the general cast, such as other groups of protagonists working in other locations for similar goals. Allows a new pool of characters for writers to pick from rather than constantly having to make new ones, so stories can occasionally focus on them and give the main folks a break. Often, characters from one-shot episodes are brought back as part of the new group.

Examples

In the world of Pokémon Special, if you somehow get a Pokedex (gift, theft, accident, doesn't matter), it is a guaranteed that you're a necessary force in combating the evil plaguing your region for whatever reason, coincidence, or personal status. Three Dexes are made for each of main regions (with Yellow receiving an older model when the Kanto trio got their upgrades. Four Dexes were also made in Unova). So up to the fifth generation, there are currently seventeen Dex Holders.Fornow.

Also, each set of regional Gym Leaders officially forms a defense group against whatever evil terrorist group is around. Sure, the Holders always save the day, but the Leaders usually provide very efficient backup.

Soul Society arc introduced the 13 Shinigami Squads, each represented by a captain, a lieutenant and sometimes several lower-ranked members.

Zanpakutou Tales filler arc showcased physical manifestations of Empathic Weapons of most of the cast.

The fullbring arc in manga introduced a number of supernaturals similar to Inoue and Chad.

In Naruto, the Chuunin Exam arc introduced, in addition to the Rookie 9 (the classmates of the main characters), Team Gai from the year above, Team Sand from the Sand village, and Team Sound from the Sound village, and Kabuto and his teammates. Each team consists of three Genin and one Jounin sensei, making a total of 24 new characters. And that was only the beginning of the arc, and doesn't include Big Bad Orochimaru, Special Jounin like Ibiki, Anko, Hayate and Genma, Jiraiya, and the Sound 4. To be fair, a handful of these characters died. Also, the Anime tones this down slightly by introducing some of Naruto's classmates in the first episode. The Chuunin Exam is only the second story arc.

The proposed TV adaptation would have added two extra regular characters, Sean Flynn and Katrina Finch, who would join up with the rotating cast of each episode. Only the pilot was ever made though, so they're both one-shot characters after all.

Usually averted with the X-Men: while their roster is large enough, they're usually split into teams with each team having its own book. The roster mostly melded together when they moved to Utopia in 2009, which sort of counts.

X-Men Unlimited definitely counts, as it rotated the spotlight not only around the X-Men team, but supporting characters, villains, and even members of other teams with ties to the X-Men. There was even an issue where Franklin Richards was the focus, in the aftermath of Onslaught.

Birds of Prey always had a very large cast of supporting characters in its early issues, but under Gail Simone the core team was Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress, and Lady Blackhawk. Once Black Canary left the series, however, the cast became a bit more fluid, with a rotating lineup. Gypsy began appearing just before Canary's departure, but slowly faded out once she left. Judomaster, Big Barda, and Hawkgirl appeared for individual missions, with Misfit (an original creation) joining as a new regular in the series (though she was never really on the team). Manhunter became a recurring supporting character, and they were joined by Infinity (another original character) shortly before the series was cancelled. A dozen other heroines (from Power Girl to The Question) are shown as receiving invitations to join the team or having been active in past missions. After the series was relaunched in 2010 the cast stabilized at six members: Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress, Lady Blackhawk, and Hawk and Dove.

And slightly before that, the Avengers already did this by recruiting a bunch of X-Men into the team with Uncanny Avengers.

Neart the end of Kurt Busiek's run, the team expanded and took on a bunch of new members. The idea was that specific teams could be assembled to respond to specific situations, rather than just having one set team deal with any problem that popped up.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight has the Scooby Gang leading an army of hundreds of slayers, not to mention a large group of wiccans and other magic users.

After recovering from the events of Final Crisis, Bruce Wayne decides to expand Batman's operations into a global franchise with Batman Incorporated. With this, each country will have its own Batman representative, as opposed to the central Bat-Family that mainly operates out of Gotham and occasionally Bludhaven.

Superman: Grounded: Superman meets a group of heroes with the same powers and ideals as him called the Superman Squad, Members of that team come from different places and times and include exotic beings such as a sentient gorilla, a sentient star system and a sentient “good idea”. At the end of Grounded, Superman forms a similar team called the Supermen of America, who in time will become the precursors to the Superman Squad.

A very common trope in fanfics based on adaptations from other subjects. For example, X-Men Evolution fic based after the series end? Expect either introducing comic characters every chapter, a big group of comic characters added as a new team, or any number of comic characters to be made regulars right from the first chapter with no introduction. Then, there's big OC fics...

Soul Eater: Troubled Souls: In the prologue, Lord Death tells Maka it is possible she and others will be fighting alongside people they don’t know as times goes on and evil runs amok. Sure enough, to fight the Gemini in Madrid, Maka and Soul have to team up with Caius and Claudia, who are working together with someone for the first time ever, and this is their first time working together as a whole. Lord Death’s point is reiterated during the Joint Resonance Training arc by Noel. It keeps going from there. Helps that the author implements OCs and expands canon minor characters.

Core Line: The Justice League Unlimited (it's right there on the name!) and the Avengers Infinity are two of the biggest examples of this type of superhero teams on this Massive Multiplayer Crossover setting. They acquire both Alternate Universe selves of "canon" characters to both groups and Fusion Fic/Super Fic Alternates of characters from other Fiction shows/universes. A running sub-plot throughout the stories written by Orion Pax 09 is an effort from the A.I. to become even bigger by becoming more open to said Fusion Fic Alts.

Literature

The Animorphs significantly expanded their membership towards the end of the series. Said newbies didn't quite make it to the final volume.

The last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer saw the Big Bad hunting down girls with the potential to become Slayers, intent on ending the line entirely. The good guys respond by gathering as many potentials as they can, and the Grand Finale sees them magically empower every Slayer on the planet at once.

House did this in its fourth season. They got a whole new team for House but at the same time kept all the previous regulars as well.

The Whateley Universe has grown like this. The original six main characters have grown to around 20 main characters and another dozen or so who have gotten A Day in the Limelight or Character Focus or just a lot more facetime than originally planned. This is only possible because the original half dozen (or so) canon authors have grown to over twice that.

Western Animation

Superfriends went from having five heroes in its first two seasons to eleven in its third (and more joined in later seasons).

And again in the comic books: "Clan-Building" ends with the main cast nearly doubling in size, as not only do Coldstone and Coldfire join, but Brooklyn goes on a time trip and comes back with a wife, a kid (with another on the way), and a "dog".

Teen Titans Titans East is the protagonists's first attempt at this. Most of the 5th season is about them recruiting new members to defeat the Legion of Doom.

As Codename: Kids Next Door progressed, it was revealed that the KND was a massive global operation. And despite the main characters being assigned operative numbuhs 1 through 5, they were not at the top of the command structure.

The first season of Young Justice focused mainly on six or seven young super-heroes, although it did occasionally look at their mentors in the Justice League. Season two, set five years after the end of the first, introduced eight new characters in the first episode alone, giving this type of feel.

Season one also ended with multiple solo heroes being inducted into the Justice League, significantly increasing its size. Season two has many of the Young Justice characters having been promoted to the Justice League.

The second season of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! steadily introduces more superheroes (to the point of introducing the New Avengers into the continuity, as a backup plan of Tony Stark in case the main Avengers are unable to fight), many of whom eventually help fight Galactus in the series finale. Various one-off characters like The Falcon, Scott Lang, and The Winter Soldier also appear over the course of the season, and return for the big team-up in the finale.

Justice League Action follows in the footsteps of Justice League Unlimited and The Brave and the Bold. The three main leads are Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman, but the rest of the League is a revolving door cast, with at least eleven other heroes on the first poster alone.

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